Advocates are hoping a new Republican administration can succeed in winning over conservatives where Democrats could not. “I have seen a sea change in the attitudes on the Hill,” said Marcia Hale, president of Building America’s Future, a bipartisan advocacy group whose co-chairmen include former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a Republican, former Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, and ex-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “I wouldn’t say everybody’s supportive, but there’s been a big change in attitude. People now recognize we need to do something.”
“Where it becomes problematic is what do we need to do, and how are we going to pay for it?” Hale said. “Is it difficult? Yes. Is it possible? I think so.”
Details of what Trump has in mind are scarce, and his presidential transition website includes just two paragraphs on transportation and infrastructure. It is mostly platitudes except for a number: $550 billion. The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s advisers want the money to come largely from private financing backed by tax credits. Hale said private financing could be part of a successful package but that public investment was also needed. Clinton’s plan combined about $250 billion in direct spending with another $25 billion devoted to creating a national infrastructure bank that could leverage up to $250 billion more in investment through loan guarantees.
Conservatives outside of Congress are watching the talks warily, but in a sign of just how much Trump’s election has shaken up the political dynamic, they have not dismissed the idea of a big infrastructure bill out of hand. They are even resuscitating what was once a dirty word on the right.
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